


Not About Angels

by Gabrielle_Erudessa



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dimension Travel, F/M, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-07 23:39:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3187556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabrielle_Erudessa/pseuds/Gabrielle_Erudessa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I came to hold your hand.” He felt her hand tighten his, and saw her breath deeply, swallowing the tears. “Even if it will take a long time, I’ll be here, at your side. I’ll care with you.”</p><p>“Thank you.” Her voice came softly, softly, almost a breeze, and then she smiled to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. My Destiny Coming to Pass

**Author's Note:**

> Isn't my mother Language, so, if you find any mistakes, please, warn me ;)
> 
> The relationship between Cole and Inquisitor it's just Friendship. I put the tag as a suggestion of a friend, and as the Inquisitor will help Cole a lot, I though that was a good point and did it. So, if you're expecting romance between Cole and Inquisitor here, I warn that this isn't the case.
> 
> I didn't finish to write this fanfiction yet, so, pull my ears to more chapters, threaten me to post more, if I began to take long to post more; I won't be angry with you for this xD
> 
> And...
> 
> No, it isn't a sequence of "Of Balls and Wreaths". Not yet. I'm planning that fanfiction better. But this one here, "Not About Angels"... Hell, it's just write and broke your hearts xD
> 
> Oh, thanks to my friend Camila Monteiro, she help me with the tittle and is some kind of beta reader :D
> 
> Aaand Dragon Age, Cole and all the Dragon Age elements belongs to Bioware. The Inquisitor Nidhögg, Alessandra, Mary, the Hospital and everything of this another world is mine.
> 
> Good reading!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: LadyStoic read the chapter and correct a lot of mistakes and made some suggestions. I take mostly of them. Many thanks, really :) I'm making corrections on chapter 2 and 3 too (by myself, without cribbing corrections made by LadyStoic xD), and writing 4. When I finish the corrections, I pretend to have the 4 already written, just to be posted.

**Chapter 1**

**My Destiny Coming to Pass**

_“Within these walls of devastation_   
_I’m passing through degeneration_   
_Confined in utter desolation_   
_In vile perpetuation I scream in desperation.”_

_ (My Destiny Coming to Pass – Sirenia) _

 

There was something different. A call in the air, but… Different. Oh, he recognized the feelings – _despair, loneliness, sadness, waiver, and pain, a lot of pain_ – but not the source nor the reasons. It was… Strange.

That day, he could not stop from walking through Skyhold, trying to figure out where the person spreading those feelings was, but it was difficult; the intensity stayed the same wherever he was, as if the feelings were only in his mind. But… No. He knew it. Someone needed help.

Almost everyone was already asleep when Cole decided to ask for help. Nidhögg Trevelyan was the only one awake, beside him; she was always awake when someone needed her. Like him, she always knew when someone needed her help, but no one, nor even him, knew how. She never talked about it. He had the feeling that was something the Anchor allowed and it had grown stronger after Corypheu’s defeat.

He knocked on the door almost fearfully, even with the knowledge that the human on the other side wouldn’t mind someone knocking so late.

The door opened with a soft creak, letting Cole see the young woman with the straight long hair, stained a luminous red that gradually became yellow and with blue tips that tapered off into white; it made him think of fire. Her eyes held the same color as the tips, with a spark of defiance; most people never looked her in the eyes. Cole had saw in their minds the reason: to them, the eyes held an air of danger as if she could kill them with a single move of her fingers, even if they didn’t know she was a Mage or the Herald..

The dark-red tattoo covering her face in stark contrast with her pale skin, probably didn’t make things easier; it was the skull of a dragon, empty scales lined in that dark-red covering the skin. Horns were tattooed on the sides of her scalp where the hair was shaved and dragon eyes transformed into her own eyes, surrounded by tiny scales. The mouth had long sharp teeth that opened when she opened her own mouth, since they were tattooed into her lips, black and white on a red canvas. It terrified most people.

“What happened?” she asked, letting him enter the room and closing the door at his back, before walking barefoot on the fuzzy carpet. When she reached her desk.,Niddhögg picked up a bottle of wine and her large silk sleeve slipped down her arm, revealing more scales lined in dark-red. He had never seen her naked, but that made him wonder if the dragon-like tattoos covered her entire body.

That must have hurt.

Cole sat down on the sofa, watching Nidhögg open the bottle and drink directtly from it. He sighed before starting to speak.

“Someone needs help, but… I can’t find who. I don’t even know who need help. The… calling… stays the same, wherever I am.”

The Mage frowned, staring at him and her fingertips – tattooed with dragon claws that slowly became her own nails, as long and sharp as a real dragon claw – beat rhythmically on the glass. He knew that she was carefully thinking about what he had said, considering all the possibilities.

“You are a spirit. More human now, but a spirit. Perhaps… This call for help is coming from the Fade. Perhaps a Mage trapped by demons, or someone who fell into a rift I didn’t close yet.”

It was time for Cole to frown.

“But… If it is what you’re saying… It’s never happened before.”

“There’s a first time for everything, Cole.” She said, shrugging. She put the bottle on the table before walking toward the sofa to sit at his side. “It’s the only thing that seems possible to me.” The Inquisitor breathed deeply. “You need to enter the Fade. Physically, not how Mages enter, using lyrium, but how we did in Adamant.”

Cole blinked at her. The Fade… He shuddered, looking to the glass’ Serault on her windows, breathing deeply, feeling like if he was trying to pass the glass and fly into the cold night above Skyhold. Enter the Fade again, now that he was more human… It was scary just to imagine.

Suddenly, a warm hand grabbed his and gave a light squeeze. He turned to face her, seeing a warm, gentle smile on Nidhögg lips.

“Don’t worry. I will go with you and we’ll find this person together.” She left his hand goes, and then rose. “Just give me some time to prepare. We’ll enter the Fade, after all…”

 

*-*

 

With Mary’s help, the girl sat down, her back supported by the soft pillow, the only thing really comfortable in her room between bed, sofa and chair. The other nurse put a plate with a supermarket cake and a lit candle on her knees, carefully.

The needle in her arm caused a twinge with the movement; Alessandra bit her lip, putting the pain to the side and leaning forward so she could blow the candle out.

In the distance, she could barely hear the news coming from the TV in the next room; some scientists in Sweden had opened a gate to another dimension, they claimed; they also had claimed that the mineral samples they brought back were totally unknown. That was the moment news. Everyone was talking about it. She felt like she should do it, too, after all her parents were some of these scientists.

But the only thing in her mind, as she blew the candles out, was to have someone, a real friend, to help her in those final months of treatment. No, not really help, but to be with her; someone who cared about her and what would become of her.

And then the candle was cleared, and the two nurses, with apologetic smiles for not being her stupid parents whom already considered her dead, cut the small chocolate cake. They gave her one slice before leaving the room with the cake to give the rest out to other patients who could eat a little.

Swallowing back the tears in her light-brown eyes that begged to run down her haggard and pale face, Alessandra ate the cake, bit by bit, and forced the sweet and dry morsel down her throat until it reached her queasy stomach. She wished that the nurses had remembered to put more water in the mezzanine’s jar before leaving the room.

 

*-*

 

The Fade wasn’t the answer. The thoughts were louder, yes, but it wasn’t there.

They walked around the Fade, sometimes fighting Demons, sometimes finding spirits, but found no other _real person_ besides them. The calling was louder than in Thedas, but like there, it didn’t change as they moved.

After some time, Cole and Nidhögg sat on a soft green-glowing rock, looking at the strange sky of the Fade. He wanted to leave soon; it felt wrong being there when he was so human.

Suddenly, the Inquisitor rose and looked around before putting the eyes on him.

“Take my hand. I have an idea.” She extended a hand to him; Cole looked at it, a sigh rushing out of his mouth, but he rose anyway and grabbed the hand. “You can feel the callin? I want you to focus your entire mind on them, let them fill you. Literally. Understood?”

“Yes.” The glow of Nidhögg prevented him from truly knowing her plan, but he trusted her; he closed his eyes, tightening his grip on her hand, and put his own thoughts away to let the loneliness and the pain fill him. The whole thing was giving despair in Cole, but he managed to keep this away too. Despair wasn’t something the person was feeling that moment.

“Now I want you _to feel from whom they are coming from and let that guide you_.” He heard the Inquisitor’s voice, and frowned.

“But I can’t say who it is.”

“Not say, _feel_. Feel all the singularities in them. Even if two people are feeling pain because of the same thing, there is a difference between them, because the people are different. Have you forgotten that? You taught me that.” Anger and exasperation in her voice. He could not blame her.

Breathing deeply, Cole let his mind navigate through those feelings, let them guide him by the unique things in them that separated them from another person.

And then he felt the Fade began to spin around them like a whirlwind, wild and almost out of control, all pure energy. He knew that Nidhögg was opening a rift; to where, Cole hadn’t any idea. Suddenly, the Inquisitor pulled him with her, and he felt as if a part of him wanted to stay in the Fade, before he felt a strange breeze carrying the smoke’s smell and the Fade vanished behind him.

 

*-*

 

The place was strange, so strange…. Cole felt despair behind the glow of Nidhögg’s mind before her hand tightened his with enough strength to make his bones ache. Her reaction worried him; it didn’t seemed like the Inquisitor.

He noticed her looking around, then to him, and her boiling-blue eyes were filled with fear.

“I… Can’t felt the Fade. Not the way I felt it before… The energy is more… Distant.”

He could understand. If he had struggled to see through her mind before, it was even more difficult to read her now. But before she told about her difficult in felt and touch the Fade, Cole hadn’t think that that difficult was for being distant from it.

The rift was already closed behind them. Around the couple lay sad grey buildings, covered with stained drawings, and trash, lots of it, was covering the ground.

A dead beggar lay in the alley, the body cold and being gnawed by rats, rats so big they appeared to be giant nugs. Beyond Nidhögg and Cole, these rats and some insects appeared to be the only living things there.

It was difficult to hear not only Nidhögg’s mind, but all the other minds around the place seemed dipped in mist, the thoughts and feelings running from him. He needed to put more effort into capturing them.

Yet, the one who had called him and guided them was louder, almost shutting out the other minds. The difference was a bit frustrating.

Now he could say it was the mind of a girl that was screaming for help, and in that exact moment it was filled with physical pain. He felt the physical pain push the mental pain to the deepest recesses of her mind. That pain… Cole wanted to scream as if was feeling it: _agonizing, maddening, mind-blowing, stealing sleep from me. No food today, please, I won’t be able to keep it in my stomach. Don’t make me eat. I know I need to, but I can’t._

“Can you still hear the mind that brought us here?” Nidhögg’s voice dragged him out of the pain; it was one of the worst he’d ever felt. Nodding softly, he pulled her hand and guided them, letting the thoughts and the pain take him through the dirty streets, but not diving in it; not yet. Now, he needed to be conscious so he could find her.

They passed some strange people, who were either walking around or just lying on the ground. Their clothes were as strange as the world, dirty and torn, and their faces talked of fatigue and vices, not seeming to see them walking between them. Cole picked up some glimpses of their minds, besides the mist and the feeling of absence around them, and what he saw reminded him of the way Templars felt due to lyrium. Whatever did this to them, didn’t sing to their mind like the lyrium did with the Templars.

Cole stopped in front of a very tall but dirty light-blue building, its top. It must have been at least ten floors, and its top was surrounded by a dark and clouded sky with just a soft moon’s gloom beginning to appear through the clouds. At the top, Samaritan Hospital glowed with a burst sun at the side where some rays lighted off. For a moment, Cole tried to figure out what “Samaritan” meant.

“It’s coming from here. This… Hospital.” Eyebrows lowered when Cole felt the different kinds of pain spreading from the building. So much pain. Some of them similar to the pain that had called him, he could say this even with the mist. The lad turned to the Inquisitor, letting her hand go. “Return to Skyhold, Nidhögg. I… I will stay. And help.”

She pursed her lips, unsatisfied and worried about him; he felt thankful for her worry.

“Varric will go crazy if you don’t return with me.” Cole nodded in agreement, lowering his head a bit, and the hat dove his blue-iced eyes in shadows. Then, he removed the dagger’s sheath from his body and gave it to the Inquisitor. She opened her mouth to say “no”, but he didn’t let her.

“I still have my throwing knifes. And…” he looked again to the Hospital. “These daggers will make things difficult. They’ll draw attention.” He turned his face to her. “Take care of them, will you?”

And then she breathed, giving up on trying to convince him. With a hand on her waist, she put the sheath on her shoulder, and then slowly nodded.

“I’ll be back in two days, to see if everything’s ok. Please, don’t leave this Hospital. I’ll turn this place on ashes if I have to.”

She waited until Cole agreed; then, Nidhögg hugged him quickly and turned back, walking to where they had landed in that strange world.

 

*-*

 

Cole faced the Hospital. The front doors had a sign written “Emergency” on them, and strange white vehicles, with “Ambulance” printed on their sides stopped all the time to drop off physically hurt people.

Some steps away from the Emergency doors was another one signed as “Reception”; from it, mentally hurt people were coming in and out.

Shuffling his feet, Cole walked to the Reception; some people looked at him, but never really saw him. It wasn’t like he was doing anything to not be noticed, they were simply deeply lost in their own pains…. _Loved ones dying; loved ones already dead. Doctors with no good news._

Breathing deeply to focus his mind, he put that pains aside for now; with no details, he would just make it worse.

Cole entered in a sterile room; some people were sat uncomfortably, reading and waiting. Behind a balcony, a woman dressed in a white shirt and pants waved to him, a graceful smile on her face. She reminded him of Josephine, in a way.

With small steps, Cole approached, hands in pants pockets and looking a bit confused at the woman.

“Are you a volunteer? Came to tell stories to the kids?” she asked, fingers intertwine on the balcony.

Tell stories to the kids. He could hear their mind, bored and full of pain and loneliness. The calling wasn’t coming from them, but… He could and he would help.

“Yes. But I… I’ve never been here before.” The woman’s smile grew.

“They’ll love you.” She stopped to look around carefully. “I shouldn’t let you in so late, past visiting hours, but it’s been such a long time since they had a distraction. And you seem like a cool guy; one that will pretend to be a storyteller from a magical kingdom.” That was the reason no one stared at his clothes; they had just assumed he was there to entertain the kids.

Cole liked the woman. Dalila, he saw from her mind. He could see glimpses of her life, and they showed a woman who liked to hold the hands of the elderly in her free time, letting them know that even if their children and grandchildren didn’t care about them anymore, she cared. Someone that liked to help.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Her voice lowered when she took a strange piece of hard colored paper and held a strange tool in her hands. Pen. It was a pen, he picked from her mind; used to write. “What’s your name?” Before her hand covered the paper Cole saw the word “Volunteer” written.

“I’m Cole.” She was breaking the rules, he saw, and depending on who met him on the highest floors, she would be in a lot of trouble. He lowered the voice too, and she smiled.

“It’s a beautiful name, Cole.” She said, writing his name on the paper; she rose and stuck it to his coat. “All right. You take the elevator” she pointed to a couple of metal doors with a button on the wall. “and go the 9th floor. From there, just follow the signs written ‘Children Sector’.”

Coled thanked the woman, and with the help of glimpses from the minds around him, he entered the large box called ‘elevator’ and managed to make it work without drawing attention to himself.

It surprised him; it didn’t seem to move at all, but few seconds later, the doors opened into another hall, where people in white coats and carrying clipboards like Josie walked between rooms and corridors.

A sign, like Dalila had said, pointed to the right “Children Sector”.

But the calling was coming from the left.

No one noticed him walking through the corridors, searching for the girl who had leaded him there.

It was the last room. A woman – a nurse, he picked up from her thoughts – was leaving it. She carried a tray full of small strange cups with names written on them and pills inside. She nodded to him, serious and not really seeing him, and entered in another room.

Looking around, Cole opened the door and snuck into the room the nurse had just left. The thoughts, the call for help, were slowing down, the physical pain being transformed into a distant memory as a wrong and artificial sleep spread through the girl’s mind. That was the only way to make her sleep that day.

He drew closer to the high bed, without lightning the thing called lamp he had saw in the minds around, just the light from the street cutting through the darkness of the room.

He could barely see the girl lying in the bed, eyes closed and a needle breaking the skin in her arm. It had some kind of tube bonded to it, leading to a bag full of cloudy liquid that was apparently penetrating her veins. From the last conscious thoughts of her mind, he knew that it was a poor attempt to take the pain away, but that it didn’t work as well anymore.

Carefully, he grabbed her hand and tightened softly.

He could not do anything for her in that moment.

But the children still needed and wanted a story.

Nidhögg fighting the Envy Demon… That was a good story.


	2. Boulevard of Broken Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: LadyStoic read the chapter and correct a lot of mistakes and made some suggestions. I take mostly of them. Many thanks, really :) I'm making corrections on chapter 3 too (by myself, without cribbing corrections made by LadyStoic xD), and writing 4. I know that on the 1, I said I would post the corrections once I had chapter 4 write, but university is taking a lot of my time, so, really sorry.

**Chapter 2**

**Boulevard of Broken Dreams**

_“My shadow's the only one that walks beside me_  
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating  
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me  
'Till then I walk alone”

_ (Boulevard of Broken Dreams – Green Day) _

“What happened?!” Cole smirked, amazed by the kids reactions. In the beginning it was a bit difficult to tell them how Nidhögg faced the demon and how he had helped, but the spirit went through with it anyway.

The youngest, a five-year-old girl with black circles around beautiful grass-green eyes, had jumped to the oldests’ bed when Cole started the history, hugging and hiding her face in his neck every time the Inquisitor met the demon face to face. She gave little cheerful screams and laughs whenever Cole was in the scene, telling Nidhögg how to win and later told him that she wanted to sit on Bull’s shoulders while he ran around when she found out about his massive height. The spirit laughed, remembering that he and Dorian and even Cassandra had been tormenting Nidhögg and Blackwall to bring some kids into Skyhold to call them uncles and aunt, children that would hang on Bull’s horns. That girl, the youngest, Lily, would love the kossith.

Her reactions make the task easier; helped him to know what parts he should leave out, and what should be told. He didn’t talk about the blood and how Nidhögg was slowing giving up to despair, before he showed her how to win. But he talked, with soft tones, about the way she lead the Templars and without destroying what they meant.

“And then Nidhögg defeated the Envy demon. The feeling of envy, however, was still with her. She always fought against it, being a mage and a magnet to demons, but never let it overcome her. The Templars become her allies, allies of the Inquisition, and it was a new start to the order.”

“And Ser Barris?” Doug, the eleven-year-old boy, asked, at the same time trying to convince Lily back to her bed. Cole smiled softly, remembering how the Knight-Commander had come one day to him, _him_ , asking Josephine’s favorite flower, hands twisting nervously.

“Some months later, Nidhögg and Cullen promoted him to Knight-Commander of the Templar. Aaand he was trying to find a way to admit his feelings for Josie last time I saw him.” Julia and Samantha, two of the oldest girls, sighed at this part. Cole added it especially for them, smirking at their reaction.

And _that_ made him remember that someone needed to help Josie and Ser Barris. He would remind the Inquisitor about this when she came back. She would think tn something he didn’t that would, finally, make them fine one another.

 _I will never do something that went against what I believe and what is right, even if I need to face someone more powerful._ A corner of Cole’s mouth pulled into a smile when he took in the thoughts projected by the children’s minds. Good. They had picked the essence.

“I think that all of you have had enough stories for one day.” A voice claimed their attention. It was the same nurse Cole had seen leaving the girl’s room earlier. She was smiling sweetly. “Lily, go back to your bed and for at least one day, let Doug sleep alone.” The little girl furrowed her mouth, personifying a bad mood as she jumped to her own bed.

Cole rose from the bed. Some kids managed to yawn and ask for more stories about Nidhögg at the same time.

The nurse feigned anger, hoping that the children would listen to her; Cole could feel happiness spreading from her mind as it came softly through the mist.

_Kids laughing. Kids asking one more story. Kids… Happy. Jesus Christ, how long has it been since I’ve seen this?_

Cole smiled, and promised another story about Nidhögg next tomorrow night before sneaking out of the Children Sector.

* * *

 

Midnight came and went while Cole watched the girl, as he perched on the sofa. The thing was made of some noisy material, making strange and loud sounds when he moved. Even knowing that the medicine would keep her asleep for a long time, he tried not to move so much.

Every hour, a nurse would enter the room and observe the strange machines making _bips_ constantly. Just then he noticed wires coming from under the sheet covering her, leading to those machines. He watched as the nurse took notes before leaving.

The first one was the nurse from the Children’s Sector. She smiled softly to him, and he saw a glimpse of her.

 _Her friend? God knows she needs one… If he makes her laugh again, I swear, I’ll climb up the Christ the Redeemer’s stairs on my knees._ Before the thought melted in the air, he deciphered a word, “Brazil”. What that was, however, he hadn’t any idea.

The others nurses just looked at him, their minds suspicious, but, otherwise, blank.

One hour after midnight, her breathing became faster, her body started to move, her head turning with violent movements. He grew worried, jumping to his feet while the nightmare coming from her mind turned cleared in his own mind.

_Cutting me alive. Smashing my brain. Inside to outside. Guts not contained by skin. Belly waving, something growing inside me, eating me, devouring me. A rusty knife opening me from the inside, and... and..._

She was almost screaming, not only in the nightmare, loud enough to wake up the entire floor, all the others sufferers. More pain would be caused.

Faster than ever, he was beside the bed, and he wished he was like Solas. Nightmares were always one of the worst to calm down.

Cole held her hand, and she squeezed it deathly tight, still locked in her mind. With his mouth close to her ear, he started to whisper.

 _And a crying babe is taken by the Healer. A baby with my eyes._ He didn't know her eyes color, but it seemed ideal. _A boy. The Healer gives him to me, and I cry of happiness._

Subtly, her hand released his. Her breath slowed down and her body was still  once more.

Cole let a sigh of relief escape. The suggestion had worked, like never before; it wasn’t a thing like a demon ripping its way out of her, a thing that her mind was calling “Alien”, but a baby.

Smiling, happy that he had helped her sleep, he returned to the sofa.

* * *

He was in that strange world for less than a day and hadn’t left the hospital, and, yet, he already understood some things. The buildings, the clothes, the technology, the politics, were all different from Thedas, but the people and their pains… Oh, these were the same.

The girl that had called to him had slept for something around ten hours. A strange, wrong sleep, like when the surgeon at Skyhold gave something to the wounded when there was nothing more she could do. It was the alternative to dying in pain. Even with the medication, he felt the waves of pain in her mind, mixed with the scenes of a sadly childhood and… a thing that her mind called “Terror Movies”, whatever that was.

If he was right, it would take something like two hours to breaking down, and she was already awake. The medicine wasn’t enough to elicit a really good night’s sleep.

During the night, one of the nurses had exchanged the bag with cloudy liquid. Whatever was entering her veins, was meant to take away the pain. He knew it didn’t work as well as should: the pain, the hurt, was still there. While her light-brown eyes looked in confusion at him, her thin chest rising and lowering too fast, Cole could almost feel how tiring it had been to sit in the bed without help, how the breath wanted to fail, how the air entering her lungs almost wasn’t enough…

He stepped forward, approaching the bed. Her eyes followed him. With the little light from the street entering through the window, he could see how her pale skin was hairless. No eyebrow, no cilia, no hair… He could see, too, dark circles around her eyes, sunken cheeks and lips without color and peeling. The strange white cloth she used allowed him to visualize clavicles very prominent and arms too thin to be healthy. Cole suspected that he could count her ribs with no effort if her torso were naked. Earlier, he hadn’t observed her in these little details so carefully.

“Who are you?” she asked suddenly; Cole didn’t answer. He was too busy walking a step closer and listening to her mind, screaming and screaming in a way he doubted she would do with her own voice. 

“Why no call from mom and dadl? A birthday cake bought, no birthday song sing, just the nurses as company. Alone. Totally alone. Few hopes to survive another year, dead to them since the doctor gave his diagnosis. Please, please, someone care for what will become of me, someone care about me, just until death finally comes.” He stopped and blinked, a little surprised, ignoring the way the girl seemed to be at the point of crying at his words.

Cole couldn’t understand everything he saw and heard, but he picked up the important pieces: the girl was sick. Physicians in her world were doing everything they knew to heal, but with little success, just like some of the kids he had known. Two years fighting against the cold fingers of death, and she was giving up. Death didn’t scare her anymore; it was just a part of the life. But the pain that the medications were becoming unable to stop or at least decrease was an irritating thing.

And no one, not even her parents, it seemed, would care if she died. That scared her and worsened the pain, the thought that she would leave the world totally alone, with no one to at least hold her hand when her soul finally abandoned her body. No one would miss her if she died, it was what she felt.

Cole sat in the bed. It was an uncomfortable thing; a straw bed would be better, he thought to himself. He looked into her light-brown eyes, just now noticing the tears flooding them, and took one of her small hands, feeling the phalanges under the skin. So thin… That was a cruel and degraded disease; he knew, just by suggestion of her legs against the bed sheet, that the limbs weren’t capable of sustaining her.

“I came to hold your hand.” He felt her hand tighten in his, and saw her breath deeply, swallowing the tears. “Even if it will take a long time, I’ll be here, at your side. I’ll care for you.”

“Thank you.” Her voice came softly, softly, almost a breeze, and then she smiled to him. A single tear rolled down her face, and he extended his other hand to dry it.

“Don’t cry, please. I didn’t want to hurt you with my words. Sorry, really. I never say the right thing.”

“You didn’t.” she answered, settling better against the pillow after making a gesture with her hand, insinuating that he hadn’t said the wrong thing, and gave a smirk. Relief came from her mind when she felt the pillow’s softness. “Do you have a name, Angel?”

Cole’s eyebrow lowered with confusion. _Angel?_ What _was_ an angel? He hadn’t heard of this. Not yet.

“My name is Cole. What is an angel?”

 _He doesn’t know what “angel” is… So, he isn’t just a figment of my imagination. Probably. Who is he?_ The spirit heard her mind, while his eyes were concentrating on her facial expression. Her mind agreed with her face: he could see a bit of relief and curiosity in her eyes. She was sincere, a raw sincerity he hadn’t seen too much in the world. Too many masks, just like Orlais. The children were an exception.

“An ‘angel’ is a being made of light and strength, creations of God, His messengers and soldiers. They can heal anything, assume forms of anyone, animal or human, and do practically anything that is necessary to help whom God wants to be helped. They also fight against demons and the Devil, the most brilliant and beautiful of them all that fell from grace millenniums ago and king of demons, if it’s what God orders them. Most people today think they’re just myth, but not me.”

Cole heard the explanation and thought these ‘angels’ like if all the spirits of virtues were in a single being. ‘God’ seemed another name to ‘Maker’, even if that ‘God’ was, apparently, more present. And the demons in this new world had a leader to be pointed, that seemed a little with Magisters who invaded the Golden City. Yet, by what she had said, he couldn’t be sure; apparently, they were invisible. It was a question of faith. It was difficult to imagine this kind of thing; in Thedas, the Maker was a question of belief, but the demons, spirits and even Andraste no. There… Everything depended on faith.

He saw some kind of hope in her eyes, and gave a small smile, tightening her hand.

“I’m a spirit. I can’t heal, nor assume other forms. But I do whatever I can to help who is in need, without needing orders to do so… And I fight demons where I come from.” He remembered  Nidhögg and her capacity to heal with magic, the way she glowed because of the Anchor and how she always helped, if it was in her power. “But Nidhögg… Well, she can heal with magic. She’s really strong, and would never let a demon control her. Always helps if she can. Fights demons too. And she glows.”

The thoughts in the girls mind – _Alessandra_ , he saw her name, and thought that was a pretty name – were of curiosity in a way that reminded him of the child he had told of Nidhögg’s adventures as Inquisitor, mostly Lily and the girl’s anxiety for more. Cole knew what Alessandra would ask before she talked.

“Tell me about her. And tell me about your fights against demons.”

He smiled at her, feeling how that, just like with these children, would help keep her mind away from the pain and the painful thoughts about the lack of love of her parents.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Found any mistakes? Warn me, and I'll correct. God knows I'm terrible with verb conjugation.
> 
> Damn, it's shorter than the first. *cries* I'll try to make the next longer.
> 
> I'll try to post a chapter per week, buuuut... I'm the Champion of Procrastination, so, if I take too long to post another chapter, I give you all the permissions to threaten me with death, if you are liking, of course.
> 
> No, I'm not saying that I'll post if the chapter had n comments. I'm just telling that you can fervently ask for more chapters if I take too long.
> 
> Aaand please, don't ask from where this Alien thing came. I really don't know.


	3. Needles

**Chapter 3**

**Needles**

_“I never seem to find a reason_   
_to let you in again, or forgive you_   
_I'm sick of feeling like I need you_   
_knowing I never did, but I miss you_   
_Taking and breaking and hating_   
_I remember all you said to me now_   
_Faking, forsaking and failing_   
_my memories are all stained again”_

_ (Needles – Seether) _

The lad definitely wasn’t a volunteer. Not with those clothes. With her parents being physicists working with parallel dimensions and all this stuff, was easy to believe that he wasn’t from that world. Not knowing how she was feeling, and definitely not with that hat: last time she had saw a brim so large was… never. Nor even in movies, books or theater. Mostly time, that brim keep his eyes hidden from her, and she was a bit surprise with the color: a smooth blue, light as ice, but with a softness and warmness that made her think on summer sky, clear, without any cloud. Alessandra liked.

He put the uncomfortable chair, aside the sofa, close to the bed, and sat there like a gargoyle. Then, he started telling about a woman called Nidhögg, the Inquisitor. Cole described her with so many details that Alessandra could almost see her there, in the room.

She seemed a powerful woman, and Alessandra liked to hear how she had fought against terrible things to close a dimensional rift and save her world. But Alessandra loved more when he started talking about her friends – for a moment she wished she could met them personally, even knowing that was something like… impossible.

Cole was just starting to really tell about the tale of the Inquisitor, after almost four hours that had simply passed through them without her noticing; nor even when one nurse came to take off the wires of her body, a precaution, since the medications to sleep she was taking after the sessions were changing to the most dangerous; some of them increased the risks of a heart attack. What prevented the young man from telling the stories – or histories, she was still in doubt how to call it – was her physician, Doctor James, choosing to enter the room in the exact moment Cole was describing, in his own colored way and filled with single details, the Sacred Ashes Temple after the Breach had emerged.

Alessandra almost put a hand up, asking silence to the physician, so she could hear the description until the end, so the place could come alive in her mind in all its glory and terror. Even if he hadn’t explained yet what, by Jesus, _was_ lyrium and why that thing he was calling red lyrium was so different and bad in comparison. The twinge in the arm with the needle made her hesitate and then the moment passed.

“Morning, Alessandra.” His tone was professional, but still with glimpses of familiarity that didn’t surprised her, once he was his physician for around two years now. But then she saw the cold smile he gave to Cole, and that made her worried; she was now, legally, adult, but her parents, besides all, were paying the hospital; she didn’t want to think what they could possibly do if they listen about the lad. “So… Your parents finally hired someone to be with you as accompanying?”

The doctor approached, his dark eyes suddenly turning to her again. Alessandra’s mind was blank for a moment, and then it suddenly came with colors of an idea. She hadn’t thought how Cole could remain there before, but in that moment, she knew.

“Oh, no, doctor. Cole was a friend of my childhood. We lost contact, you know, as mom and dad carried me all around the country… He came as a volunteer with the children, and discovered I was here at random.” Biting her lip, she looked at her thin hands for a moment, seeming – and being – a little ashamed with the lie. “Can… Can he stay as the accompanying that I have right?”

Alessandra looked up with her light-brown eyes again, staring at the doctor. He sighed, crossing his arms.

“Of course he can, Alessandra. As you said, it’s your right. Just you can say who can or can’t accompany you.” Yet, she didn’t lose the glare he gave to Cole.

It must be that giant hat, she thought when turned her eyes to the white-blond man. Almost immediately, her brows lowered in confusion.

Cole looked to her, his summer-blue eyes with the same glow of when he talked about her feelings, and she knew: he was just about to do it again. And, oh, Lord, that would be difficult to explain. Quicker than she could imagine, another lie reached James’ ears.

“I’m hungry, doctor; I could eat an entire cow.” Oh, no; her stomach was still dancing cancan insider her, saying that anything she eat would be put outside. Violently. She hoped Cole had catch up that whatever he did to know about the thoughts of the people should be something between them, for his safety. She didn’t doubt that, if her parents or some of the scientists in their team heard about the lad and this strange gift, she would never saw him again. Damn dimensional scientists.

The way Cole hid his eyes behind the brim told her that he had understood.

Doctor James’ brows almost reached his military hair.

“Are you sure? It didn’t pass twenty-four hours since you’ve finished the chemotherapy… You never had hungry so early before…”

Ouch. He was right. She was a terribly liar, indeed.

“Well… My stomach is saying that will kick outside anything I eat, but it’s still pleading for food. It’s crazy, doctor.”

He nodded, biting the lie, and then looked to Cole; Alessandra noticed how sorely the lad was staring at James. She imagined what was he seeing on the doctor’s mind?

“Cole, right? I need you to get out a little. I’ll examine Alessandra.” It was an order; she knew it always was with James.

“Alright.” Cole looked to her, and she felt a shiver on her back: his summer-blue eyes gave her a glimpse of how worried he was with her. He didn’t want to let her alone with the doctor. She had just met him, but… That made her suspicious about James. Cole rose slowly from the chair, his eyes lowering just a moment. “I’ll be outside the door if you need, Alessandra.” It was the first time he told her name, and made her smile, not noticing at all when he walked to the door. Hell, she hadn’t even listen his steps, just heard he closing the door at his back.

Once they were alone, James pushed the sheet off her legs, observing carefully the pale skin. Alessandra knew he need to be certain that she hadn’t catch a skin infection, as her immune system was totally screwed thanks to all medications they had put in her in the last two years. If he found any sign of infection, she would have to take not only all the medicines to pain, but a whole cocktail with these and antibiotics – and she was totally disregarding the chemotherapy; she would go crazy if she didn’t. It would just screw her more, so she was really expecting that, like two day before, James would find nothing.

After a few minutes, he covered the limbs again and approached her, helping Alessandra with the jersey.

“You lose more weight…” she heard his thoughtful voice, while he was examining her back, his arm supporting her by the shoulders; Alessandra was feeling his fingertips in her ribs, like if counting them, not believing that was so easy to do it without many efforts. Then he sighed, letting her use the pillow as support again, quickly looking her front and arms. “You need to eat more when you can, Alessandra. Your cancer is more… Hungry… Than anyone I have ever seen. You need energy.” He said, finishing the exam and helping her dressing again.

“And I _eat_ , doctor.” She weakly protested, watching him put his hands on the coat’s pockets. Before the doctor could talk, someone knocked on the door, and the girl knew was Cole. “Come in!” The lad entered, letting the door open, and took his place at the chair, waiting and… Watching over, seemed.

The doctor sighed, seeming regretful for let Cole stay, before look to her again.

“I will ask something for you in the kitchen, Alessandra.” James looked the hour on his watch, walking to the door. “You are as ok as you could be for now. See you in two days, if everything remains ok.”

And he was gone, walking to another patient.

Alessandra sighed, sinking into the pillow before putting all her attention on Cole. He had collected his legs, involving them with his arms.

“Are you ok? I think… I think you didn’t like the doctor…” she asked, carefully, tilting her head while observing him.

 

*-*

 

His muscles were tense, his hands pleading to pick one of the hidden throwing knifes and sink it on the doctor’s neck. But he couldn’t.

_He is crying, soul yelling with pain and despair. She won’t resist, the baby is already gone, and he will lose her too. ‘I can save her, you know… I just need your signature right here, and twenty years full of happiness to both of you, including one or two children, if you want’, the man agrees and it’s done, one more soul, one more year to me. Oh, I should return home one day… I miss the screams._

Many glimpses like that. _What_ that man was doing? So many, so many he approached in moments like that – one beloved one dying, wanting success, needing money, needing _help_ – and the doctor had helped, but if felt _wrong_. The strange bliss he could fell in his mind… was different from the one Cole felt when helped someone. It was darkest. Wrong. Made him anxious, giving him the felling that he _should_ kill the physician, but the hours in the Hospital, picking up glimpses of how that world worked, made Cole understand that _he_ could end up dead, no matter the reasons, if he did that. _And what screams the doctor missed?_

“Cole! What happened?” Alessandra’s voice reached him, almost like a bell. Breathing deeply, he put his eyes on her, seeing her confused and worried face, her thoughts… Worried with him, in a way that reminded Cole of Varric when he stayed quiet for too long. She had noticed that something wasn’t fine between him and the doctor.

“Some things in his mind were… were troubling.” He didn’t want to talk her about the glimpses of him, he suddenly noticed as he pulled the brim’s hat until it covered his eyes from look. She wasn’t like Nidhögg, Cassandra or Vivienne; she was in pain and read for the moment she would pass away. Things like that… Alessandra needed peace and someone at her side. Cole barely could wait for the Inquisitor; he needed to talk with her about that thoughts. “Hurt me.”

He heard the bed creak, and then a hand, thin and light, touched his shoulder. Slowly, he let the brim go, and rise his head to look at her.

She was smiling, softly and gentle, the way Nidhögg had smiled to Dorian after he met his father: gently asking if was everything ok, without demand an answer.

“Do you want to talk about this thing of hearing pains and thoughts? It seems that you need this. And… Hell, I’m curious about it too.”

He smirked, nodding, making her press her back against the pillow again before starting talking.

 

*-*

 

Less than one hour later, a man pushing a food cart stopped in front of the room. He gave Alessandra a tray full of food and smiled before left.

Cole watched the girl staring at the food – bread, butter, milk and something with a strange smell that reminded him the cocoa’s smell that Bull loved. She didn’t seemed so hungry as had said earlier, and appeared to expect the food just disappear from the tray without she moving a finger.

“Want me to continue telling about the Sacred Ashes Temple?” he asked, smiling when she sighed with relief.

“Please.”

“With one condition.” She blinked, lips slightly falling apart. “You’ll try to eat a little.” His time being more human had taught him that some persons need to be convinced to eat, even when they need. “Not all in the tray, but a little. You need strength to keep awake and hear the story.” His lips take the form of an expert smile, knowing that he had used the right words.

Her shoulders lowered a bit while a dragged ‘alright’ came out her mouth. Without any real will, she started eating, slowly. Faithful to his word, Cole continued to tell about the Temple and what Nidhögg did there.

 

*-*

 

The food man had already came back and took Alessandra’s tray – from which one she hadn’t eat so much as she should, Cole noticed – when an old woman entered the room and closed the door behind her back. Her hair was gray, some highlights more white than others, and her skin was like wet paper after dry again: wrinkled, but not so much. The glimpses of her mind reaching him were full of worries, some about Alessandra, and others about children with her own black eyes.

“Aparecida?” _What_ kind of name was that? What was the meaning? He became curious. Was different of anything he had heard before. “And the nurse my parents are paying to take care of me?” Alessandra asked when the old woman approached her with a wheelchair; Cole had seen the thing when he was with the kids, and had thought that was interesting and useful; sadly, it won’t work on Skyhold, with all the stairs there.

“She wasn’t fulfilling her contract: she should stay with you twenty-four hours per day, helping you with everything, and not just some hours to give you a bath; so, your parents fired her. While we didn’t find another one, I’ll come every morning to help you with the shower and everything else.” She was in half-way to the bed when she finally saw him. She blinked, surprised, but in the next moment the woman was hostile. “ _Santa Madre de Dios_ , who are you?”

“I’m Cole. I… I’m a volunteer with the children.” That woman was dangerous; she was like a bear mother, read to kill any threats to its cubs, which one was Alessandra.

“Here isn’t the Children Sector.” She said, acid, crossing her arms same way Blackwall did when telling the kids in Skyhold that they couldn’t enter the crypt because was dangerous… Even if Dagna had said that _would love_ them there, making company.

“We met yesterday, Aparecida. He made me company, and the doctor allowed him to stay as accompanying.”

 _If he hurt Duckling as those idiots, David and Anne, did, I’ll kill him._ He didn’t know who David or Anne was, but whatever they had did to Alessandra, was enough to put the old woman on her limits. She cared with the girl. Not enough to be a substitute to her parents, but cared.

Smiling, he rose and helped Aparecida to put Alessandra on the wheelchair, holding one of her arms and supporting her – light – weight, one of his arms half hugging her, feeling her ribs against his fingertips besides the cloth, while the old woman grabbed the other arm and slowly guided her till she sat down. For a moment, when the affliction caused by so many movements reached him, Cole wanted to hug her, hoping that would help. She was doing all she could to not scream as that pain, similar to a thousand needles piercing her lungs from inside to outside, filled her.

Cole wished he could do something to stop her ache. He felt impotent, hearing her thoughts of pain; the histories helped her, put her mind in another thing, turned her thoughts to other stuff, but wasn’t enough. The pain was still there, still making her sweat to not scream for mercy.

He returned to his chair when the women entered the annex bathroom – that was a strange thing, comparing to the ones in Thedas, and he was still trying to figure out how it worked.

Aparecida had closed the door, but he could still hear when water started to fall. A few moments after, he almost felt in his own skin when Alessandra’s thoughts flickered with more ache.

 _Lava against my sensitive skin, scalding, someone scalping me, cutting my skin off while I’m still breathing and awake and nothing can stop the pain. The medicine in my veins isn’t enough; it’s never enough and will never be._

He made a mental note to ask Nidhögg if she knew something strong to pain for Alessandra. He should try.

 

*-*

 

Alessandra breathed deeply under the hot water, trying her best to make easier to the maid that was more mother to her than the woman who had gave birth to her. Maintained her arms raised while Aparecida rubbed them, even if this caused a fatigue that seemed endless to her; she sighed with relief when could low them, and didn’t try to do the same with the legs.

The maid was trying to do it quickly, knowing her sensibility, but not fast enough to avoid the vivid color red to spread through her skin, like if she had submerged in boiling water. She decided to talk, to turn her focus away from the pain.

“Will… Will they come, Aparecida? I mean… The day after their lab disclosed the dimensional gate they called me and said that would come this week, to a… commemoration. Will they?”

Aparecida stopped rubbing one of her feet, and she saw her breast rise and then lower in a tired way. She didn’t need an answer loud. That reaction was enough.

If they _were_ coming, the maid would know. Since Alessandra was a little child the woman was with them, traveling around the country as her parents’ work required, making all the preparations they need: buying the airplane pass, contracting taxis and anything else. They would have asked the maid to buy their pass from Europe to America.

That brought her a different ache, almost turning the pain caused by the hot water insignificant; was like a thousand thorns curling around her heart, around her soul and spirit, and tightening more and more. Her parents were always the ones who induced that kind of pain. David and Anne had provoked one very close of that sensation, but they did this just to her heart. Her stupid parents were the only ones able to hurt her essence.

“I’m sorry, Ale…” Aparecida said, softly, turning off the water, drying her and the wheel chair before help her dressing a clean nightdress, letting the old one to be taken by the hospital’s maiden.

And then she was returning to the room, and again with Cole’s help, to the uncomfortable bed. That time she almost didn’t felt her lungs and legs screaming with the effort; she was too much focused in not crying with Aparecida still on the room. She didn’t want to maintain her there beyond necessary.

Alessandra watched the old woman, her safe-port when a child, leaving the room after asking if she need anything else and received a negative as answer.

Cole hadn’t sit again yet; she saw he walk till the door, closing it, before returning and sat in her bed. She carefully lied and then turned her back to the door, and felt him holding her hand. Alessandra looked to him, seeing a knowing and soft look in his face.

“ _Why they never keep their promises? Why they won’t come? Have they ever realized that passed almost two years since last time we met? Why I’m still foolish enough to believe them?_ ” here he stopped, and Alessandra felt the other hand in her face, putting away tears she hadn’t noticed running through her cheeks, and she gasped with something like despair, not wanting to cry the way she felt her body want her to do: with yells, choking with her own tears, sinking her head in the pillow until she saw stairs with the lack of oxygen.

The hand stopped trying to put the tears away, and started to caress her bald head, carefully, like if she was made of crystal; Alessandra didn’t blamed him, because she felt exactly this way.

“You aren’t foolish to believe. You’re someone who loves your parents, besides all.” He whispered, softly, still comforting her, trying to push the pain away.

“It still hurts.” It came in hiccups, her lungs screaming for air, but she couldn’t stop crying to give them what they need.

“I know.” And then he was talking about a man named Rhys, his first friend and the one who taught him how to play chees, and a mage Adrian, and…

And then she had fallen asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooory by the late. I was so lazy of typing the chapter (I wrote it in a notebook first)...
> 
> I'm the Champion of Procrastination, you know...
> 
> Well, I hope you liked the chapter. Aaaan I hope I'm making right with Cole... Blame me and pull my ears if I'm not.
> 
> And I'm almost certain that someone will kill me by the side-plot I imagined to Doctor James, in a future not so far away... I swear that at first I had something different to him in mind, but then I saw... Well... "Something", and my stupid brain, lover of the classic Good against Evil, take the better of me.
> 
> I'm drawing the first of three Tarot Cards for Not About Angels... The first WIP in my tubmblr is here http://gabriellerudessa.tumblr.com/post/109751383947/and-hell-yes-im-drawing-a-tarot-card-for-not.
> 
> And, hell, "Needles" says everything about how Ale's parents hurt her. I must have problems, making a girl so tortured.
> 
> Till next chapter!
> 
> PS: Because this fanfiction isn't here in the Archive and for now it's so "OMG!" and I know I'll cry and... Hell, I just need to share with you. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10989620/1/Pear-Shaped-Lover


End file.
